Rosa Perera

Rosa Fernandez Perera, much-beloved wife, mother, and grandmother, passed away peacefully, to stand before her Lord and Savior, after an extended illness, in Jacksonville, Florida, on Friday, December 10. She had earlier received the sacrament of healing and the Holy Eucharist of the Roman Catholic Church, of which she was a faithful daughter all her life.

Mrs. Perera was born in Cabezas, Matanzas, Cuba, on April 26, 1926, the only child of Carlos Fernandez de la Cruz and Ana Luisa Ares Vazquez de Fernandez, and grew up in Sagua la Grande, Las Villas, Cuba (which she considered her hometown). She took her Doctorate in Philosophy and Letters from the University of Havana, in 1950; in that same year she married Hernan Diaz Perera, and had her only child, Carlos Diaz Perera, in 1953.

From May 5, 1962, she made Florida her home, settling first in Orlando, then in Kissimmee, Florida, a community in which she set down deep roots, teaching at Osceola High School from 1965 to 1989, when she retired, and attending Holy Redeemer Catholic Church. Altogether, her teaching career in Cuba and the United States spanned the years 1950 to 1989. She had four grandchildren by her son and daughter-in-law, Kathleen Patterson Perera: Anne Marie (1983), Lisa Rose (1986), David Charles (1988), and Stephen James (1990).

From 2005 until her demise, Mrs. Perera lived, along with her husband, in Jacksonville, to be near her son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren.

She will be deeply missed by those left behind.

A visitation and rosary, led by Father Silverio “Sal” Di Fazio, will be held at the Greenlawn Cemetery funeral chapel on Monday, December 13, at 6:00 PM. A funeral mass will be held the following day at noon, at Christ the King Catholic Church, followed by burial services at Greenlawn Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, mourners are asked to donate to Father Flanagan’s Boys Town, www.boystown.org/, a charity to which Mrs. Perera was much devoted. Arrangements by Greenlawn Funeral Home.